Posted by kglee | Filed under Software Fixes
It’s really easy to hack the login password of Windows XP. This trick can be useful if you forgot what your login password is and want to change it so you can login again. I actually had this experience when I was trying to use my laptop which was deserted for almost a year. Forgot password = Can’t login. But there’s always a solution.
How To Hack
1. Restart your computer and keep pressing F8.
2. From the menu, select boot in safe mode with command prompt.
3. once you’re at the command prompt, type “net users” (without quotes)
4. You will see a list of usernames. Pick the username that you are using and type
“net users username *” (without quotes, replace username with a real username from that username list)
5. You will be asked to enter a new password and a second reconfirmation.
6. Press enter and you will be told that your username password has been changed successfully.
Easy, wasn’t it?
Posted by kglee | Filed under Software Fixes
If you’ve worked with windows for 2 minutes you’ve probably been exposed to the Blue Screen of Death or BsD. Usually Blue Screens are rather harmless and go away after a reboot. But when they don’t, when they stick around and keep reoccurring after every reboot, then you have problems. The first thing you should do is try to boot into safe mode. You can do this by pressing F8 after you hear your computer beep while it is booting up. If it boots into safe mode all is well and good and you just have a start-up program gumming up your computer. (See my Spyware Removal Guide for information on how to manage start-up entries.) If safe mode generates the same blue screen you have more work ahead of you.
If you can’t boot into Windows XP, not even into safe mode, and you’re getting a message like, “unmountable boot volume” on the blue screen they a simple chkdsk might fix the problem. The tricky part is booting your computer so you can run chkdsk. The easiest way to do that is to use a windows installation CD. To do boot off of a CD you first need to configure your BIOS to look for an Operating System on the CD before it tries the hard drive. Usually this is done by pressing ‘del’, ‘F2′, or some other key to enter setup and adjusting the boot priority so that the CDROM is first. When Windows setup finally loads (it takes several minutes) all you have to do is press ‘r’ to enter the recovery console.
Sometimes it will prompt you for the administrator’s password. Most people I encounter don’t know this or think they don’t have one. See the Password Recovery Guide to find out how you can reset your administrator password.
Once you are in the recovery console you will be greeted with a friendly command prompt. The first thing you are going to want to try is chkdsk. Simply typing “chkdsk” should scan your hard drive and fix any problems it finds. Sometimes it is necessary to use “chkdsk /p” and if you want to be really thorough and have several hours to burn you can use “chkdsk /r” that causes it to do a surface scan of the disk. If chkdsk get’s hung up for more than an hour, as in the percent complete doesn’t change for a long time, there is most likely something physically wrong with your hard drive it will have to be replaced. Once chkdsk complete restart the computer by typing “exit” and see if windows will boot now.
Posted by kglee | Filed under Software Fixes
Internet Explorer 9 will not be supported by Windows XP. Period. Microsoft’s web technical evangelist Giorgio Sardo, speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo, has confirmed this. The reason given is that HTML5 and hardware acceleration require a modern OS.
Note: Interestingly, while XP users won’t be able to benefit from IE9, pirates will, as there will be no validation required.
But is this nothing more than a cunning ploy to make users upgrade the OS?
Let’s consider the evidence.
First, XP has a massive, entrenched following. It’s usage share is at 63.4%, while Vista holds a market share of 15.6% and Windows 7 an impressive 11.7%. Many XP users don’t see the need to upgrade because the OS does for them everything they need it to do. So it is in Microsoft’s best interests to come up with reasons for people to upgrade.
The there are the browser stats. Internet Explorer 6 has a greater market share (17.6%) than Firefox 3.6 (15.3%). Internet Explorer 8 enjoys an usage share of 24.6% while Internet Explorer 7 continues to hold its own with 12.5%.
What about other browser vendors, such as Opera, Mozilla and Google. Are these players abandoning XP? No. Here’s what Google Chrome developer Alex Russell had to say:
Posted by kglee | Filed under Software Fixes
We all know by now how tweaking our operating systems (I’m lumping in Linux into this catagory) can help speed up our systems. We also know applying various networking tweaks to our operating systems can also speed up our web browsing experience but, outside of our OS’s we really have no control over anything outside of our routers. Or do we? Is there a way to make web browsing faster without having to dig into the Windows Registry? Can you speed up a Linux system by changing just a couple of DNS settings? Yep, you sure can!
What Exactly Is DNS
The “official” definition (via Wikipedia) – “It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participants. Most importantly, it translates domain names meaningful to humans into the numerical (binary) identifiers associated with networking equipment for the purpose of locating and addressing these devices worldwide. An often used analogy to explain the Domain Name System is that it serves as the “phone book” for the Internet by translating human-friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses.”
http://forums.winxpcentral.com/showthread.php?p=55324#post55324
Posted by kglee | Filed under Software Fixes
Windows 7 is now in RTM stage and general availability will be on October 22. If you are using Windows XP, then there is no upgrade option to Windows 7. Windows 7 does not provide an direct in-place upgrade for Windows XP that will retain user’s applications, programs, settings, customizations, personalization and data while setup performing installation of Windows. If you try to upgrade to Windows 7 from a system which is using Windows XP, you will be shown an error report which informs you that direct upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 is not available.
Microsoft recommends Windows Easy Transfer which can be used to preserve your files and settings from your XP machine, but please note that it will NOT back up and transfer program files and applications. You will need to reinstall all the applications again.